How many of you carry a gun as part of your cycling equipment?

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Who told you that?

Do you really feel free if you feel the need to carry a device for killing when you go for a ride on your bike?

Seems like your quote is more accurately:

"Feeling the need to bear arms is a true measure of insecurity." :pWOW!

I must be imagining things or else you are trying to tell me that carrying a concealed handgun is a freedom!!!! That logic would make Iraq or Israel (where people seem free to carry concealed explosives) the most free places on earth!
Surely a society that protects a citizen's rights to travel safely without the need to be armed, and certainly to recreate on a bicycle without carrying a gun is desirable. I'd happily trade my 'individual freedom' to be murdered for the obligation for society to offer me that protection.Can society protect you?

I don't think that there's any obligation for society to provide me with protection.

The fact is, I do not feel the need to be protected. That is the whole point of what many Australians, Europeans and Brits have posted here.

I just don't get how anyone could think they have freedom just because they are allowed to carry a gun. :confused:

Freedom for me is being able to be part of a society where I can go about my business and specifically enjoy cycling without being so scarred of the other members of that society that I need to carry a gun.

Obviously I do not live in the U.S. and I can happily say that I'm glad of it.

If you think that your right to carry a gun is what makes you free, then I feel truly sorry for you. Obviously U.S. society is in such a bad state that you feel you have to bear arms to protect yourself. As you have been raised in this society you have no other perspective from which to base any comparisons. The perspective provided by a many others here is based on having the benefit of viewing your society from the outside and also have something else to compare it with.Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

well, actually Australians have a quite different attitude. We have created a civic society where we trade individual 'freedoms' to kill each other or to be killed for rules that we all try to abide by. As freud pointed out though, the rules only exist as a sanction to the wish - we also feel the need to murder each other from time to time but on the whole it is fairly harmonious and safe. we don't need to carry weapons when cycling - perhaps that is our loss, in which case it is a feature of US culture that is best not exported here.Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

If you feel the need to carry a gun you are not free. Whether I am allowed to or not doesn't enter into it.Naive!

So killing other people is protection? Makes you free?

I'm going to Hawaii in a couple of weeks can you recommend a good shop to buy a gun? Maybe I can open a bank account and get one for free. Just for protection of course. LOL.Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

Life-threatening violent crime is very unusual in Australia. Gun control has little to do with capitalist vs collectivist economic policy.But it does happen!

Australia has one of the best health systems in the world, and it's free. In terms of quality available to all, it is vastly ahead of the UK and the US, although some of the Western European nations may be comparable.Really?

Originally Posted by artemidorus
I imagine that the citizens of New Orleans are very happy that there are so many guns around for folks to protect themselves with....is that whilst they are riding their bikes?Might be.

very very few criminals in Australia have guns. You can still get hurt, even killed but very few have guns and you can travel virtually anywhere without your own gun.

I hope that you enjoy the US health system, now there's an expensive disaster!Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

Australia has 9 of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world.

1 cyclist in 1000 might have seem one when they ride.

I have. I ride around them.

To be able to shoot them you would have to turn around, pull your gun and be a great shot.

As any sensible person who has had to deal with venomous snakes will tell you - the first rule is to leave them alone. Most snake bites occur to people interfering with them.

If you want to kill snakes (note I am not mentioning protection) carry a shovel.

10,000 (minor exaggeration) crazy gun carrying cyclists on this thread, all of whom are from the usa (there is no way I would cast a slur on all the sensible americans) suggest that attitudes to killing in the us are widespread - and attempts to justify carrying are gun that are a serious threat to credibility are also common. The stereotype fits.

So attach a shovel to you bike, no, carry one in your hand as you ride, just in case.

LOL :DWOW!

The only person you need to feel emabarrassed for is yourself. You sound like one of the gun-toting good ole boys who come from the US. It doesn't sound like you have to be very intelligent to study medicine in Canada. LOLWOW!

Thanks for your facetious observation; I am aware, as would be 100% of the readers of this forum, of the basic details of health economics. The point I was making, and that you are overlooking in specious fashion, is that the consumer doesn't pay at the time of seeking care, which is a critical point. It is a truism that insurance funded health care is cheaper, as the excesses and copayments are designed to make it that way. The point is whether a society is willing to accept these or not.

I agree; a truly dysfunctional health system. The health systems of other countries, however, demonstrate that one can't generalise from one example.

The fact that you cite no sources for this wild statement leads me to believe that it is your own glib concoction. Glib, but indefensible and probably just plain wrong.


I suppose it's asking too much to expect debate on this forum that does not stoop to personal insult. Relax, your line of argument isn't sharp enough to make paltry insults sting, so I won't return the favour, beyond this sentence anyway.


Once again, relax, I'm not attacking the US medical research industry, so your rank patriotism is unnecessary. And hell, we expect the largest and richest Western country to be churning out a lot of medical advances. Your health system, however, leaves a lot to be desired.

And they probably don't turn them away in Russia or Afghanistan either. The point is missed spectacularly. It is the care of chronic, insidious illness, especially in the poor, that suffers when health care is costly, not the care of acute, severe illness.

Of course, it is human nature to live for today.


Agreed; there are large cultural differences in reporting rates. Australians are reporters, as our LEAs are not typically so overwhelmed that they ignore all but the most violent crimes.

This wasn't my assertion. Life-threatening violent crime is rare. I have never met an Australian who feels that the possession of a gun would have improved the outcome of a crime of which that person was a victim.

This may be true within the US, and may be true within any other country with patchy gun ownership laws. It certainly doesn't hold water when you compare an objective statistic, such as murder rate, between countries, such as, for example, between the US and Australia. In fact it is a laughable hypothesis. As I have previously said on this thread, however, I think that the US is a violent country due to deficient educational, welfare and correctional systems, and pervasive racial divides, rather than simply due to the lack of gun control.


This is laughably wrong. You are partially excused because this is rubbish propagated by your NRA, and hence widely believed by Americans. Please refer to a graph I published on this thread some weeks ago, sourced from our Bureau of Statistics. The murder rate has dropped since 1996. Australia is a vastly safer country than the US, with about 1/3 your homicide rate.


You will be disappointed if you look to Australia as a crucible to prove your hypotheses. We did not have guns at home before the laws, so for the vast majority, nothing has changed. Most of the guns handed in were from recreational hunters and gun nuts; these people still have non-automatic rifles, shotguns etc if they really wanted them. The average Australian household hasn't had guns for a century. We're different from you guys, and that's why this thread staggers us. It has nothing to do with laws. The thought of the general public carrying concealed guns disgusts us. And don't give me that "sheeple" rubbish; you guys are closer to being overrun by demented religious fundamentalists than we are to being carried away by Maoists or Big Brother.


The world wouldn't have existed in its present form if the Romans hadn't had swords, the British hadn't had cannons, the Australian colonists hadn't had rifles. What a specious point. Times change; necessity becomes barbarism with time.

What a ridiculous line of argument. "You don't agree with me, therefore you are ignorant."
Gun control is about guns. Guns are for killing or threatening people; I have never in my life needed to do so, and I know noone that has.
But lo, I see the error of my ways, a shining light streams from the sky - I need a great big gun to stop the government from trying to control me....Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

What a reply artemidorus, im proud of ya! How can they justify carrying a gun to PREVENT crime it doesnt make sense! I have never had more than a hooligan crying out nice bike!!! lol, i did not feel my life was in danger or that i needed a gun lol.:)Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

Earlier in this thread someone stated that there were 80 Million gun owners in the US. These 80 Million gun owners owned approximately 225 Million guns collectively.

What I find scary in this is that out of 80 Million people, how many of those are not of sound mind? How many might be suffering from depression or another more serious mental illness and if something happens to them to trigger a fit or rage etc, how easy is it for them to get hold of a gun and do something stupid with it?

If you are of perfectly sound mind, have training in the correct use of the firearm etc then that's great.

What would worry me is that there has to be many thousands possible millions out there who are not of a sound mental state or those that have had little or no training.

Anyway, on a brighter note.......

Who's getting out for a ride this weekend?Could lives have been saved?

I used to work in Afghanistan and the Tribal Regions of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province back in the early 90's. I didn't feel the need to carry a gun (although I did fire a few to make the local Chieftans happy), and, yes, I did have a few pointed at me (I don't think me carrying a piece would have helped in any way). So, since Afghanistan is out of the equation, I guess it's now down to Somalia and those parts of the USA?WOW!

the problem perhaps is that you live in a society where this is likely to happen. You see the solution as guns, however so do the 2 dirt-bags breaking into your house. If they know you're armed they'll shoot too, you get a bigger gun because you need to outgun them, add in CCTV, armoured doors, security fences, dogs, security guards in your walled community, and soon your bike trip consists of 5 laps of the neighbourhood street or even worse, the bike trainer. This is insecurity, not security. maybe it's a cultural thing, I'd prefer to live in a society where I don't have to worry about those things because they are very rare.

Incidentally, if my buddy and I come to visit we'd probably ring the door bell and wait for you to answer the door (and then we'd shoot you - only joking).But...

Excuse the bluntness, but STUPID YANKS carrying STUPID GUNS. Are you insecure or something?

Enough said. Here in Australia, we have very tight gun laws and hence few very gun related deaths.WOW!

Are you guys really that scared or do you live your lives like the films ? In europe carrying the extra weight would mean you'd lose the race !Random violence does occur, of course random violence will never affect you, but random violence does occur!

that's why we have Police. That way citizens don't need guns. You should travel to some other countries and see how some societies are alternatively organised.I live in another country, so do you, and the Police are not able to protect us!

well, you've got me there. next time we have a hurricane that destroys the city and all public infrastructure I'll remember to take my gun with me when I go for a ride! I presume that you ride everyday and don't just save it for 'special occasions' like that?

You're right, the bad comes out in people all over the world, it is human nature, but why don't most people see the need to carry a gun with them whilst cycling?No personal experience, nor do they know anyone with....!